Rats
by Mikkeneko
Summary: In Infinity, Kurogane finally confronts Fai about his cold behavior. But the answer he gets back isn't one he wanted to hear. Angst, philosophizing. Mild Kuro/Fai.


Title: Rats  
Rating: PG  
Spoilers: Up through Infinity, minor hints to later events.  
Warnings: Angst, philosophy.  
Author's notes: I've commented before that I don't really enjoy the time period of the Infinity arc, since there is so much tension and hurt on all sides. Still, this was a fic idea I had that I wanted to put down.

* * *

Kurogane's arm throbbed, and a thin trickle of blood seeped down his palm from beneath where his hand was pressed against the wound on his wrist. Fai had finished eating, and was just licking up the last smeared drops of red. "Well, then," he said, in a voice of studied casualness, "I should be going."

He gave Kurogane a bright smile, ringingly empty in its falsity. "Thank you for the meal, _Kurogane-san._ See you in the morning."

"Wait," Kurogane growled, his hand landing on Fai's shoulder as he turned towards the door. Fai turned back quickly, startled for a moment before he blanked his expression once more.

Kurogane placed his hand against the wall and leaned forward, getting into Fai's personal space. "I want to know what your problem is," he said, lowly and heatedly. "Back in that room in that acid-rain world, you told us that the brat would have half your magic power so long as you continued to live, and that we couldn't fight him so long as that was the case."

Fai started to say something, a flash of anger in his expression, but Kurogane cut him off relentlessly. "But we'll deal with that when the time comes, just like we deal with every other enemy that comes our way. And whatever he does with it in the meantime, even if it's your magic he's using, it's _him_ who's doing it. Not you. You aren't responsible for what he does, and you _know_ that. So what the hell is it about me keeping you alive that you're so angry about?"

Fai stared at him for a long moment, his single eye blank and impenetrable. Kurogane met that gaze unflinchingly; he'd given Fai enough time to run and hide from him, from them all. Now it was time to deal with this for both their sakes, and for the sake of their companions.

Perhaps some of that determination showed in his face, because Fai broke it off and turned away, brushing past him not towards the door, but back into the room. "Would you care for a drink, Kurogane-san?" he said, rifling briefly through Kurogane's pack on the floor until he came up with the bottle that had been riding there. "You did say you wanted one, but then I've been doing all the drinking, haha..."

His wrist still throbbed, but Kurogane shoved his sticky hand in his pocket and ignored it. "Fine," he said. "If it means you'll answer my question."

"One glass for you, then, and a shot for me. I doubt a very small amount will make me sick, but why push it?" Fai poured out the amber liquid for both of them, and left the larger glass on the table as he turned his back and stared towards the window. Kurogane came over to claim his share, and for a moment they were as close again as they had been when Fai was feeding -- until Fai started a little uneasily, and moved away to sit over by the glass, leaning back against the windowsill.

At last he spoke. "Do you believe in free will, Kurogane-san? Are men free, or are they merely puppets of a greater destiny -- rats, if you will, running in a maze?"

"Of course I do," Kurogane replied. "I control myself, not anybody else. Nobody can force me to do anything I haven't decided to do." He tilted the glass to his lips, and closed his eyes as the burn of the liquor stung his throat. It was a good burn, he thought. Distracting. Not as distracting as Fai.

"You didn't decide to come on this journey, did you? Your Princess sent you, quite against your will. Your decisions had no bearing on you coming here. Where is free will then?"

Kurogane shifted uncomfortably. "That isn't true," he said. "I may have ended up on this trip against my will, but it wasn't _my_ actions that resulted in me being here. That doesn't invalidate free will. You can't control the actions of other people, but you can always control the actions of yourself."

Fai smiled, but his eyes were shadowed. "Dear Kurogane... you speak as one who has never had much experience with magic. Or else you would find that there _are_ things that can compel you to do what you would never choose to do." He turned his head to regard the peeling paint of the wall beside him. A grey-and-white rat had crept out of the loose baseboard around the sill, and was now standing up and sniffing the air in Fai's direction, eyes glittering curiously. Fai held out one hand, and the rat came over and investigated his fingers.

"This isn't answering my question," Kurogane said, ignoring the rat. Small critters, once identified as part of the environment, were things he tended to tune out, but Fai was always a little strange about small furry things; just look at how he acted with the white pork bun.

Fai continued, eyes on the rat, who was sniffing at his hand as he turned it this way and that. "What would you do if the man with the bat sword appeared before you now, but you had lost all memory of why you hated him -- as Sakura has? Or what would you do if you remembered everything, but found yourself compelled by magic to love and obey him despite your hatred?"

Kurogane's eyes flashed. "There is _no_ force in the world that could ever force me to obey him," he grated out.

Fai laughed. "How very naive! You still believe that magic is something that can be overcome by sheer stubbornness, determined force of will. But that's only because you've never encountered that kind of magic. There are some ways to shield against it, but you have neither the talent nor the training for that sort of thing..."

"I remember the Kiishim," Kurogane said. "It was a spell that made her obey that rat of a man, the shaman. But all along she knew that serving him wasn't what she wanted -- her decisions were still her own. And she got him in the end, didn't she?"

Fai's fingers idly traced a pattern in the air above the docile rat, who followed the path of his fingers obediently. "The Kiishim was an immensely powerful being -- she had far more natural resistance to magic than a human would. And yet, even all her mighty power and will didn't protect her, did it? Even that was only a crude, clumsy spell, easily shattered. There are magics much more subtle, and more profound. Magics that can reach down deep into yourself and rip out control of your own limbs by its roots, dance you along like a puppet to the will of another."

Kurogane said nothing, but he felt his gorge rise as he contemplated the picture that Fai was describing.

Fai continued. "When your very soul is overwhelmed by the control of another -- when your own body moves helplessly to act against your will, strive though you might -- when your own hands dive into acts against which your mind screams out in rejection, where is free will then?"

The rat that Fai was playing with was following his every move as if mesmerized, quivering in fascination -- no -- Kurogane's eyes narrowed as he focused on the little animal. The hairless tail was lashing in what looked like terror, and Kurogane could just barely hear the squeaks of distress that were escaping it even as it moved obediently to that hand. "Stop it!" Kurogane said sharply. "Let it go!"

Fai's hand suddenly stilled and loosened, and the rat instantly turned and bolted towards the wall. "It's only a rat, Kurogane," Fai said quietly, letting his arm drop at last. "No need to get so excited."

There was thunderous silence in the room for a long moment. Finally Fai leaned back against the sill of the window, head turned to stare out into the sodium-spattered night. "The first time I encountered such magics in my study," Fai said quietly, "I wondered that very same thing. If we can be reduced to puppets on strings, rats in mazes, then what is it about us that makes us men? What meaning is it to have a soul, to be self-aware, if everything we do can be controlled by others while we watch in helplessness?"

Kurogane said nothing.

"But eventually I realized," Fai continued calmly, "that there is always a choice. Because there is no magic that can compel the dead. There are no spells that can bring a person back once they are gone, or force them to bend to your will. You can't force a dead person to do anything, no matter what magic you try. They are truly free."

"By that time, it's a little late to do you any good, isn't it?" Kurogane said with a kind of sick horror. He gulped down the rest of his drink, profoundly unnerved by the macabre turn this conversation had taken.

Fai shrugged. "It's the freedom of death that gives meaning to free will in life," he said quietly. "I came to realize that, eventually. Because no matter how tightly your choices in life are constrained, you can always choose to step off the path. That one final choice is always there. You may choose to live, and be forced see and do terrible things. But there is no one who can _ever_ take away from you your choice to die."

Fai finally raised a slightly trembling hand and downed the contents of his shotglass. It made him cough wildly for a moment into his hand, but after a deep breath he set the empty glass on the filthy windowsill and turned to look directly at Kurogane.

"That was what I _used_ to believe," he said in a hoarse voice, his gaze boring into Kurogane's.

A long, tense silence fell between them. At last Fai stood up and walked to the door; this time Kurogane made no move to call him back. "Good night, Kurogane-san," Fai said, as the hinges creaked behind him. "You should really get some sleep. We have another maze to run tomorrow." 

* * *

~end.


End file.
